History of Ancestors Worship

 All about the history of world cultures in ancestors worship.  

ancestor worship

Alternate titles: manism, veneration of ancestors

所有关于祖先崇拜的世界文化历史。

 祖先崇拜

 其他称谓：人本主义、祭祀祖先

1. Ancestor worship, prevalent in preliterate societies, is obeisance to the spirits of the dead. Fetishism, the veneration of objects believed to have magical or supernatural potency, springs from the association of spirits with particular places or things and leads to idolatry. 

一。 在没有文字的社会中盛行的祖先崇拜是对死者灵魂的崇拜。 拜物教是对被认为具有神奇或超自然力量的物体的崇拜，源于精神与特定地点或事物的联系，并导致偶像崇拜。

2. African cultures

 In African religions: Ritual and religious specialists.

 Ancestors also serve as mediators by providing access to spiritual guidance and power. Death is not a sufficient condition for becoming an ancestor. Only those who lived a full measure of life, cultivated moral values, and achieved social distinction attain this status.

二。 非洲文化

 在非洲宗教中：仪式和宗教专家。

祖先还通过提供精神指导和力量来充当调解人。 死亡不是成为祖先的充分条件。 只有过着充实的生活，培养了道德价值观，并取得了社会地位的人才能获得这种地位。

3. Ancient Chinese religion.

In China: Religious beliefs and social organization.

Early forms of ancestor worship, together with all that they imply for social organization and obligation among the living, were deeply rooted and extensively developed by the Late Neolithic Period. Such religious belief and practice undoubtedly served to validate and encourage the decline of the more egalitarian societies.

三。 中国古代宗教。

 在中国：宗教信仰和社会组织。

 早期的祖先崇拜形式，连同它们对生者之间的社会组织和义务所暗示的一切，在新石器时代晚期得到了深刻的根深蒂固和广泛的发展。 这种宗教信仰和实践无疑有助于验证和鼓励更加平等的社会的衰落。

4. Ancient European religions.

In Finno-Ugric religion: Sacred ancestors

…religion is thought to be ancestor worship. Some of the main terms (e.g., “grave,” “hades,” and “soul”) go back several millennia. The cult concerned only dead members of the family; other dead beings were experienced as restless haunters, and aggressive expelling rites were used to dispel them. 

四。 古代欧洲宗教。

 在芬兰-乌戈尔宗教中：神圣的祖先

 …宗教被认为是祖先崇拜。 一些主要术语（例如，“坟墓”、“阴间”和“灵魂”）可以追溯到几千年前。 邪教只涉及死去的家庭成员； 其他死去的生物被视为不安分的鬼魂，并且使用了激进的驱逐仪式来驱散它们。

In Slavic religion: Communal banquets and related practices

…manistic (pertaining to worship of ancestors). It is not irrelevant that until the 19th century there survived here and there throughout the Danubian-Balkan region the custom of reopening graves three, five, or seven years after interment, taking out the bones of the corpses, washing them, wrapping them in new linen,

animistic belief systems

In animism: The animistic worldview

…such as shamanism, totemism, or ancestor propitiation. These cults do not, in any case, constitute the whole religion of a people. They are, however, institutions that are not bound to one culture area—an Australian totemic cult does bear a “family resemblance” to an African one, though their differences also are…

READ MOREherding societies

In primitive culture: Herding societies

…with the content known as ancestor worship. Much of the mythology by which a primitive people explains itself and its customs comes in this way to have an ingredient familiar to readers of the Old Testament—the lengthy story of who begat whom and in what order.

READ MOREhorticultural societies

In primitive culture: Horticultural societies

…society does not usually practice ancestor worship as does the hierarchical society. Among horticultural peoples with chiefdoms, the chief’s ancestors, in time, become gods. The most remote ancestors, the founders of the chiefly lineage, are the most important gods; more recent ancestors and those of related but collateral lines have…

READ MOREKorean cultureIn Ch’usŏk

…harvest and to honour one’s ancestors. Similar to Thanksgiving Day in the United States, the Harvest Moon Festival, as it is also known, is one of the most popular holidays in Korea. The day begins with a ceremony in which food and wine are offered to ancestors. This is followed…

READ MOREMalagasy religion

In Madagascar: Religion

…religion, which is based upon ancestor worship. The dead are buried in tombs and are believed to reward or punish the living. There is a supreme being called Zanahary (the Creator) or Andriamanitra (the Fragrant One). There is also a belief in local spirits, and a complex system of taboos…

READ MOREMayan culture

In pre-Columbian civilizations: Society and political life

…have been the object of ancestor worship by members of his lineage, the departed leader having become one with the god from whom he claimed descent. Ancestor worship, in fact, seems to be at the heart of ancient and modern society and religion among the Maya.

READ MOREOceanic cultures

In Oceanic art and architecture: The Marquesas (Marquises) Islands

…wood and stone, represented deified ancestors. The head on such a figure was typically shaped like a dome or a vertical cylinder; the almost featureless torso showed the familiar Polynesian forward arch of the back but placed no emphasis on the buttocks; the legs were ponderous, carved rather than bent,…

READ MOREprehistoric religion

In prehistoric religion: Burial customs and cults of the dead

Evidence for ancestor cult practices dating to the 7th millennium BCE were first discovered at Jericho in Palestine, where several skulls were found to have been deposited in a separate room, some of them covered with a plaster modeling of faces similar to that found on the…

READ MOREsignificance inAfrican arts

In African art: Dogon and Tellem

…with spiritual beliefs related to ancestors, both real ancestors and mythic Nommo spirits (primordial ancestors created by the central god, Amma). Figures are made to house the spirits of deceased family members and are placed in family shrines, and masks are used to drive away the spirits of the deceased…

READ MOREanimism

In myth: Relationships of descent

…of the plant or animal ancestor.

READ MOREconcept of Providence

In providence: Qualities of the divinity

, ancestors in many religions). Benevolence is the primary requirement. In northern Malawi, death in later life is usually ascribed to the will of the ancestors, but a miscarriage or the death of a very young child is not considered to be their work because such…

READ MOREfire worship

In nature worship: Fire

In areas practicing a definite ancestor worship, hunters obtained the fire from the subterranean world of the dead (as in East Africa). Before the Iron Age (15th–2nd centuries BCE), the generating of fire with the aid of fire borers, or fire saws, was viewed as a sexual act (male and…

READ MOREfocus of worship

In worship: Other focuses

The veneration of ancestors is known in many religious communities (e.g., Confucianism, Shintō); shrines in honour of the ancestors were maintained in Greek and Roman homes in antiquity. Heroes of the tribe, the region, or the city were also focuses for acts of devotion in many…

READ MOREHindu veneration of pitriIn pitri

…the spirits of the dead ancestors or of all the dead who have been cremated or buried in accordance with the proper rites.

READ MOREkami concept in ShintōIn saint: Shintō

…veneration of nature and with ancestor worship; it does not have saints according to the standards of ethical perfection or of exceptionally meritorious performance. According to Shintō belief, every person after his death becomes a kami, a supernatural being who continues to have a part in the life of the…

READ MORELantern Festival

In Lantern Festival

…Asian countries that honours deceased ancestors on the 15th day of the first month (Yuan) of the lunar calendar. The Lantern Festival aims to promote reconciliation, peace, and forgiveness. The holiday marks the first full moon of the new lunar year and the end of the Chinese New Year (see…

READ MOREobservation of time

In time: Environmental recurrences and religion

…reflected in the cult of ancestors, important in Chinese religion and also in older civilizations and in precivilizational societies. The observation of the annual cycle of the seasons and its crucial effect on agriculture is reflected in a ceremony in which the emperor of China used to plow the first…

READ MOREreligious iconography

In religious symbolism and iconography: Anthropomorphic motifs

…the religious pictures used in ancestor worship; the spirit and soul idols of various local cultures in animism; the fetish, or charm, figures of West African fetishism; and the magical objects of hunter and agrarian cultures. This type of anthropomorphism reaches its high point in the ritual and mythical pictures…

READ MOREsacrifice

In sacrifice: Recipient of the sacrifice

…offerings at the shrines of ancestors (emizimu) of up to three generations back. Worship of spirits and of ancestors, often including the offering of sacrifices, occurs in widely distributed cultures; in fact, according to some scholars, probably the major recipients of sacrifice in non-Western traditions are the ancestors.

In sacrifice: Religions of China

Furthermore, ancestor worship has been the most universal form of religion throughout China’s long history; it was the responsibility of the head of a household to see to it that sacrificial offerings to the dead were renewed constantly.